


Red

by isengard



Category: Batman (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: I might have a thing for jason's domino, M/M, Songfic, drabbly nonsense
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-03
Updated: 2012-11-03
Packaged: 2017-11-17 16:10:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/553426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isengard/pseuds/isengard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>but loving him was Red.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Red

The domino mask sits in its place on the bathroom counter, where it’s been for weeks now.  Dick hasn’t touched it once, not even to clear the fine layer of dust that’s settled on it and dulled the color.  He doesn’t have to touch it to know how it feels under his fingers and against his mouth; doesn’t have to remind himself of the soft, cool texture, although there are moments when he desperately wants to.  Sometimes when he comes home from a patrol, he’s seized by overpowering nostalgia and finds himself reaching for it, the electric blue stripes of his gloves drawn to the deep red of the mask that stands out so vividly in the beige bathroom.

But he always draws his hand back before blue meets red, and retreats instead to his room, shrugging out of his suit and returning it and himself to the dark grey of the dawn; the fog that doesn’t lift in Blüdhaven this time of year until well into the afternoon.  It presses in on the windows like it wants to crawl inside his apartment and turn him into another obscure shadow.  Faceless.  Lately, he’s been entertaining the idea of letting it in to see what happens.  He never even noticed it when Jason was still there.  
  
When he wakes up in the middle of the day, the room is still charcoal grey, and the sounds from the streets are muted by something bleak.  He folds himself into the bed for a little while before his stomach is groaning painfully, and only then does he force himself into the kitchen to get some cereal.  
  
The ugly white kitchen is largely unchanged by Jason’s absence, but the living room is bluer.  He can see it from where he stands behind the counter, eating his cereal over the sink.  The room used to have red and yellow undertones – in fact, his whole apartment used to have more light in it.  But now the sprawling plush sofa and poorly built bookcases are blue in a way that sucks out all the other color.  Dick _knows_ blue, knows the defined shades of it like the one in his uniform, but this blue is something he can’t put his finger on, no matter how hard he tries.  It’s not even so much a color as it is the absence of everything else.  
  
It’s why he avoids the living room now.  That and the bookshelves, which are still stacked with Jason’s overdue library books.  Eastern philosophy and old science fiction paperbacks.  Dick can see their fraying spines from where he stands now, and he quickly finishes his cereal so he can go back to his room.  It’s dark and heavy with silence, but at least he can put a name to it.  
  
He’s about to gather his towels for the laundry when the domino catches his eye again.  It’s hard not to stare.  The red of the mask is the only color in his whole apartment now.  When Jason was there, _everything_ was flushed in undertones of red.  Jason burned up a room with his presence, completely undoing the neutral theme Dick had going on.  Jason’d told him to get a plant or a couch cover or something to liven the place up, but Dick had always just trapped Jason in the circle of his arms and said, “That’s what I have you for,” knowing full well that he wouldn’t have Jason forever.  
  
But Jason is gone, and he took all the colors with him and left behind an unidentifiable shade of blue, some library books, and a haunting red domino.  
  
Some days, Dick really hates being in his apartment.  Some days, he gets in the shower and rakes his fingers angrily through his hair as a few tears of frustration mingle with the hot water pouring over him.  Some days, he wants to take that red mask and throw it out the window, or burn it like it’s burning him to look at it.  Some days, he wants to move it to the bedroom or the living room to see if it loses its color like everything else.  
  
Deep down, he knows that it won’t.  
  
He remembers the first day he woke up and found Jason gone.  Jason left all the time to go out and do things that Dick didn’t ask about and didn’t want to know about, but this felt different.  He couldn’t’ve explained it if anyone had asked, but somehow everything around him had been colored by loss.  As if the objects in his apartment needed Jason’s touch to keep life in them.  Like he did.  
  
It’s been over a month now, and he’s pretty sure Jason isn’t coming back, but he still can’t bring himself to move the domino.  He comes back one night bloody from a fight he could’ve avoided and doesn’t miss the symmetry of colors between the wound in his shoulder and the mask, which is a kind of wound in and of itself.  He patches his shoulder – it’ll heal in a few days.  He doesn’t know how to how to heal his apartment.  All the color besides the mask has bled out.  Maybe it’s too late.  
  
\--  
  
The next morning, Dick wakes up earlier than he usually does.  Something’s shifted.  The fog – it’s not there, or it is, but it’s different somehow.  He gets out of bed, cringing a little at the throb in his shoulder, and goes to the window.  No, the fog is still there, thick as ever.  It’s just not pressing in.  And there’s a warmth in his room – his breath hitches in his throat and he turns and walks to the living room.  
  
It’s still blue, but – he _knows_ it now, knows the colors that blended together to create it.  There’s some gold there, and grey, and even a little red if he looks hard enough.  His gaze goes to the library books.  They’re untouched, and his blood goes cold for a moment as he races to the bathroom.  
  
The domino is _blazing_.  It hasn’t moved a millimeter, but there isn’t a speck of dust to be seen on it, and the sheer color of it is burning up the room.  That can only mean one thing.  His stomach turns over as he searches his apartment for the point of entrance, and finally finds that the deadbolt on his front door is only halfway closed.  Intentional?  He doubts it.  Somehow, it’s hot to the touch, but he presses his palm against it anyways, and his voice comes out red too.  
  
“ _Jason_.”


End file.
